Romantic Dinner for Three

I am a 23-year-old professional women who had just gone through a rather difficult breakup with a boyfriend when a group of friends from the office found ourselves at a local bar for happy hour. Our waiter was rather cute and very charming and even sat down to chat while we were there. Feeling particularly daring (and realizing I had nothing to lose), I left my business card for the waiter with the check. Sure enough a few days later, he e-mailed me and asked if I wanted to go out sometime. I accepted. He said he wanted to make me dinner at his apartment and I thought that sounded wonderful.

The evening of the big date arrived and I swiped a bottle of wine from an office happy hour to take along to dinner. I arrived at the building and called up to have him let me in. When we entered the foyer, I noticed it was garishly decorated with lots of construction paper and posters. Then one caught my eye which read "Resident Advisor Apartment"

I asked my date if he lived in a dorm and he replied that he did -- but it was more like university-provided off-campus housing.

"Wait," I said, "How old are you anyway?"

"I'm 20," he replied, "But I'll be 21 in less than two months!"

Not knowing exactly what to do, I followed him upstairs to his apartment and found out he lived in a four-person, two-bedroom apartment. The lights were dimmed and there were lit candles on the table which was romantically set... for three. He then introduced me to his roommate and informed me he would be joining us for dinner, which consisted of that old college staple -- spaghetti with pieces of chicken in it which he called "Chicken Cacciatore."

After about an hour and a lot of wine (good thing I brought the wine since I was the only one in the room old enough to obtain it), the other two roommates arrived home, trailing along with them about six female co-eds, all wearing backpacks. They began to unload the beer cans from their backpacks and the conversation turned to how lucky they were to sneak in all that beer without the RA catching them. Stunned at immediately finding myself smack in the middle of a college frat party with beer and babes, all I could do was sit with my eyes glazed over in utter embarrassment.

Finally, I stood up and told him I was leaving and that he should call me back in about five years (or at least when he could buy me a beer at a bar).

-- Kate